Released in Japan in December 1989, Sweet Home is a psychological horror RPG that is considered the inspiration to Resident Evil. It follows a team to an abandoned large mansion as they seek to recover paintings but are soon trapped by a ghost. Emphasis on survival through battling horrifying creatures, solving puzzles, multiple endings and permanent death for any of the characters are some of the features of this game. It was never released outside of Japan because of its brutal horrific imagery. Apparently Resident Evil was different enough.

Best time: Single-segment 1:04:16 by Andrew 'RaneofSoTN' Melnyk on 2012-05-07.

Hi there. This run is Sweet Home run done in 1:05:24 by Japanese timing. This is from start of game (not power on as there isn't anything to do) all the way to the end. Technically this "cheats" cause it skips the opening scene and jumps directly into the game. But it doesn't matter, adding in time, it still beats any listed run I could find.

Sweet Home is a game made by capcom and was dual released the same day as a movie. Which makes it one of the first movie games on the Famicom. The deal is that 5 really dumb people are going into a house to capture some frescos of a great painter that have since faded. Unbeknownst to them, some dicks messed with the spirit of the painter's wife by digging up the dead baby. Now these 5 are trapt in a mansion and must use everything to get out. Yes this is a HORROR RPG.

Now the first thing that is painfully obvious is the fact the run is in japanese, this game never came over to the US, nor did the movie. It is a pretty cool movie for the 80's and I suggest giving it a watch, the run might make a bit more sense if you do since they tie in pretty well.

The route I follow is from what I learned watching a 0:55 J TAS on Nico. The item pickups and drops and uses are all very well planned out. I take a few more tonics than the tas just because I can not perfectly manage battles.

Key things to know about this game.1. Party size can NEVER Exceed 3. So I can't run around with more than 3 people at a time. There is a normal feature in the game to call people not in the battle. This is used in the run when it would save time to not get a bunch of normal combats. Otherwise you can use this to get all 5 members into one combat. Very important for normal play.

2. Inventory size is limited to everyone's special item, 2 more item slots and 1 weapon slot. This is the start of the resident evil series in a lot of ways. Careful item management is something I learned from the tas but I had to do a few changes. The tas picks up a broom to avoid the extra frames of the vacuuming sound/animation thingy. This is the better option if I could manipulate the battles about 200% better but I can't so I keep an extra Tonic floating.

3. There are 4 items in which I need to beat the final boss. These fill up 2/3's of my party's inventory at the end. I need the Pulley (a hidden item) to increase my walk speed. Thus I am allowed to carry in 1 tonic if I keep items done well. For reference I need... {rough translations} the Tool/Statue, The Diary, The Photo, The Coffin.

4. There is a bit of forced grinding in this game. I must be level 16 to open the final area. The max level is 20. I need about 10k exp to achieve level 16 in the game. Fighting all reasonable battles and winning them in 1 turn is the optimal strat. If I could manipulate battles for best efficiency in leveling I could knock a couple of minutes off but this is not something I can solidly do. Thus all improvements from here are mostly luck based.

5. There are status ailments in this game. Only two show their ugly face in this run. Cursed (the screen turns blue every step) doesn't actually cost time. Its just an annoyance. You still run as fast but the afflicted character loses PP every step. Fades when out of PP. The other is a strong poison which I have to use the medic to cure. There are more and they are a lot more common. This run is basically over if I get status'd at any point in the run. Poison (HP bleed out) takes time as it slows the game down. I donno why poison does but cursed doesn't.

6. You can "PRAY" in battle. Praying uses prayer points and modifies/augments your current damage. You need to use a LOT of them to be beneficial. But... When used properly/in a solid quantity, you can double your damage. This is basically key to kill things in the run in 1 'turn'. Tonics are used to restore prayer points. There is a hidden item 'dress' that allows me to get infinite prayer points, but it is suboptimal for the run as I can't exploit it to great effect. Inventory space is too limited.

7. Items can be used in battle to do damage to enemies that are weak to specific items. The damage is based off the attack of the user, so the goal is to put strong weapons on the people using these items and wreck everything. There are listings for which items are effective against each enemy.. the RPGshrine list is NOT complete. Part of my item route involves keeping items to make battles even shorter! Also all items have a "soft cap" to their damage. For example the rope never does much more than 100. it can go higher but the damage is really nerfed. So its better to use attacks after a while. (Level 15-16 is about when you can start to do more than any item can help you do in the game)

8. There are 5 endings to the Game. They are purely based on # of characters alive at the end and nothing else. This run achieves the "best" ending of all 5 alive. It does not matter who is alive for the endings.

Thats about all you need to know. The rest of the game is mostly just watch and learn. The fastest method of beating the game involves... leaving two members behind at the start. They are 100% safe in the entrance. So we take our 3 important characters and run around cluelessly in the mansion.

About the route:There is no possible chances for encounters until I open the first door and step beyond it. Then your step encounter gets set to the same step number. So I always know when I am getting my first combat, every combat after this is determined by the FRAME you end the battle. So it is possible to emulate the tas if you memorized everything and could play it back. Not feasible but in some cases I could match the first few battles of the tas. This run gave me a better real time setup though.

I stop and get an early Log and some rope. These are helpful in breaking some of the earlier enemies. I also need logs later, and saves me some time. The ropes make short work of the knights later. After this I head off to turn on the power. I also make a bridge to get the CLUB. This weapon is OP early. 30 attack no spiritual attack, but it allows me to have one person destroy everything from the early game, as spirits become only more common after about halfway through the game.

After turning on the power I run back and use the Knights as an exp buffer. Funny fact about Sweet Home... if you get into a FORCED encounter (stepping into Knights or w/e) it 'resets' your step counter cause it changes at the last battle frame. So the optimal form of EXP farming is to get into a battle then immediately get into another FORCED encounter. So you dont waste steps on encounters that won't happen. In the first knight room and the following hallway there are No possible encounters. This kinda sucks but its a thing. After the knight room, any status ailments are basically forced resets/me sighing eternally unless its the curse.

I wanna say a thing about the status ailments in the game. According to the fan translation they dont specify the difference between the two curseds. One is death to the run as it freezes a party member, the other is the more tame "bleed out PP". Whenever I get that cursed its my policy to run that member's PP out as quickly as possible to avoid the annoyance and to also stop the bleeding out from occuring between tonic heals. I am very limited by the tonics.

A piece on my swapping the hammer out, and dropping that pickaxe to the fire extinguisher. This is for manipulation on breaking a wall later, and to have a clean set of items. The extinguisher is god-like against the fire spirits, makes sense right? I get my 2nd set of weapons here and move on. Heading out to the garden.

In the garden its my goal to unload the majority of the logs I got and make sure I have the shovel and Key. I drop off the AX as its useless outside of the one piece of wood i have to chop to get into the garden. So I leave it on the grave like a bad killer would do. I pick up the lock-pick here to help take care of a troublesome door. it CAN be opened by the key but it wastes time to try to move Emi to do that. So I pick up the lockpick. The first person through the door is stuck in the cutscene, so the person with the full slots takes the walk. The two ladies follow up.

After this I take a dip into the basement. I crack open the wall and here it is that i use the lockpick for its only purpose. Thank you TAS I don't think I would've picked on this as quick... After This i grab more tonic and move on. Using the spirits saves about a minute or two (depending on enc luck) so they are used.

Another fact: all spirits in this game take you to the same spot. that spot is determined by the ROOM. So if you get carried off multiple times they will go to the same place. UNFORTUNATELY this is not true if the enemy uses the attack "Blow Wind". This is random between where the spirits can take you and 3 more locations... Thus I avoid changing locations by Blow Wind at all costs.

After exiting the basement, some more item management, grabbing the hammer, breaking a wall, and grabbing the pulley. The meat and potatoes of the game is just up ahead, and the inventory management is now very tight. I suggest you watch carefully if you intend to comment.

I did get cursed unfortunately and had to use the medic. This cost about 30s but its a risk that I take and it still saved time overall. After this, there isn't much else to comment on until the final dungeon. I accidentally triggered one or two spirits (i forget). This is very annoying but nothing I could ultimately do. I lack the practice for this room. if you follow an exact sequence this is 100% safe. The spirits are manipulateable but at this point between nerves, and my controller being a bit troll. its hard to get a very good sequence.

The Final Boss Rush goes down quickly. Only 3 of the 5 have to be killed (fitting that I am only using 3 of the 5...). After that Mamiya goes down quickly to some more tas strat rippings. I dont have the uber damage manip of the TAS but it goes down in a quick enough fashion.

Thats Sweet Home... If you ever need help through a mansion feel free to bug me =D!